Sweet Effort
by Calaeris
Summary: For a prompt: Sherlock bakes a cake. It doesn't go to plan, but at least John isn't objecting to the mess.


AN:/ I don't like this, but it's the best I can do. There was a prompt! All the way back in 2010, someone asked:

I would like Sherlock to bake John a cake. Failing miserable, getting all icing and flour on himself, but John appreciates it any way x

Someone said they'd fill it, but there's no fill attached, and I thought - hey, why not, it's not like I've got anything better to do. So I might change this a bit later. Any concrit gratefully appreciated =) I'll try and respond to the people who reviewed my other two Sherlock stories soon.

Sweet Effort

Contrary to popular belief, Sherlock Holmes wasn't entirely oblivious to the emotional needs of others. However, it had taken John storming out for the eighth time that month after he'd found an experiment where he had expected to find food (or soap, or linens, or his phone – it was hardly Sherlock's fault that 221B was not a fully-equipped laboratory with appropriate storage facilities) for him to realise that maybe he was reaching the limit of his flatmate's patience. After all, there were sixteen other incidents where John had shown his displeasure in a dramatic or vocal manner besides leaving the flat and as it was only the eighteenth it did appear that he was being a little more impossible to deal with than normal.

He blamed Lestrade, and the sorry bunch of would-be murderers and thieves on the streets of London who either hadn't the guts to go through with it or the intelligence to make it interesting.

Opening John's laptop, because it was nearer and he didn't want to have to waste time walking over to his own, he Googled "how to pacify an irate flatmate". Most of the links that came back were useless (what part of 'flatmate' could be translated into 'cat'? He didn't need to know how to pacify a cat) or not quite relevant (even he could admit John wasn't exactly 'a flatmate who gets angry when any trivial issue is raised', nor did he suffer from manic episodes), so he scrapped that and thought for a moment.

He typed a new phrase into the search engine: "Gifts that will make people happy." That was useless too.

Sherlock frowned slightly, steepling his hands and resting them on his lips, thinking. Then he smiled ever so slightly, and typed in a third phrase.

"How to make a Victoria Sponge cake" – if nothing else, this would make a perfect experiment.

Checking the clock, he quickly calculated whether he would be able to make one in time. According to the website, it would take approximately an hour, so if he added on an extra fifteen minutes as this was his first attempt at something like this, and another half hour for a quick trip to the shops for ingredients he didn't have on hand, he should still be back before John, who wouldn't be back before six. He flicked his eyes down the list, realised he had no idea what was in the cupboards already, and relocated to the kitchen.

Butter: yes, but not enough. Caster sugar: no, they used granulated for the tea. Self-raising flour: bought some last week – his flour-bomb experiment would have to wait another week or two. Eggs: yes, and mostly fresh. Jam: yes. Double cream: no. Icing sugar: ditto with the flour.

Plucking his coat and scarf from the hat stand, Sherlock ventured out into the London afternoon to do battle with Saturday shoppers at the local supermarket. The walk there was uneventful, as was the actual collection of the ingredients, but he had a little trouble with the self-service machines that he deleted from the hard drive as soon as he got back to the safety of 221B. He did, however, keep the notion that he should never, ever return to that particular supermarket, especially if he was with John.

The implements he borrowed from Mrs Hudson.

"Baking a cake? Oh, John will be pleased that you've gone to the effort," she said when he asked if he could borrow them. He would have just taken them, but for two things: Mrs Hudson was in, and he wasn't sure what he would need.

"Will he?" he asked disinterestedly, but was secretly pleased that his experiment had a decent chance of success.

"Oh yes, it's very thoughtful. But, Sherlock..." she trailed off.

"Yes, Mrs Hudson?" he asked, wanting to get to it but aware that out of the two of them, Mrs Hudson was the only one who'd actually baked before. Never let it be said that Sherlock Holmes ignored the advice of experts.

"Are you sure it isn't a little... complicated?" she said tentatively.

"Mrs Hudson, I assure you I am a scientist. I can follow a set of simple instructions," he answered, not wholly unkindly, then took himself back off upstairs.

Sherlock went back to the recipe, measured out the ingredients according to the website, and began. Sherlock never told anyone the precise details of what happened in those two hours. But there were a few things he learned that day that stuck with him.

When creaming butter and sugar with an electric mixer, make sure that the butter is soft and don't try for the highest setting straight away. Also, microwaving the half-creamed mess (what's left in the bowl) to get the butter softer doesn't actually work. (He had to redo everything.)

If unsure about your talent at cracking open eggs without getting eggshell mixed in, crack it into a bowl. That way, you don't spend the next ten minutes with tweezers trying to get the eggshell out of a rather horrible looking concoction. (Also, tweezers don't work. You need to use your fingers, hygiene be damned.)

When sifting flour, shake the sieve from side to side, not up and down. (Obvious really, he should have seen that straight away.)

When whipping cream – look, just buy the cream pre-whipped. Just do it.

Once Sherlock had the cake in the pre-heated oven, each tin filled perfectly equally and with the mixture as flat as a disconnected heart monitor except for the smallest concave in the centre, which would apparently prevent it from going pointed. For a moment, he sneered at the imprecision of the instructions (about 20 minutes or until the cakes are pale golden and spring back when pressed gently with a finger – no mention of 'do not open the oven until the cake is done if you don't want it to deflate' which he'd found on another website) but set the timer for twenty minutes anyway.

Sherlock took a look around the kitchen, and started a mental email to the woman who had provided the recipe. He would have never started this venture if he had realised the amount of mess that would be produced.

John had had enough. Usually, Sherlock's 'experiments' and other eccentricities were just part of the background – wearing, but ultimately harmless – but for the past three or four weeks it had almost seemed an assault on him. And his shampoo. If he didn't know better, he would think that Sherlock was trying to get rid of him.

Fortunately, he did know better, and after meeting Lestrade down the pub for a couple of hours everything seemed funny again, or at the least ordinary. It was a relief to have someone to complain to who didn't think that his annoyance was an excuse to talk about how terrible a person Sherlock was. By half-four, he was ready to take on the flat again, as well as his flatmate, and putting his key into the door he thought idly that Sherlock had probably forgotten he'd gone out by now. He was probably sitting in his chair waiting for John to pass him his phone.

Opening the door, he called for Sherlock and got no answer. Not particularly concerned, he made his way to the kitchen for a cup of tea.

The sight that greeted him was... words couldn't describe. There was flour, everywhere. There was a spray of what looked like grainy pus across the cupboards over the work surface. There was also Sherlock, hair white with flour and probably icing sugar, globs of who knew what on his shirt and face. He was focusing on dusting a cake with icing sugar, with far too much in the sieve, and when John coughed his eyes flicked over to him.

"You aren't supposed to be back yet," he said with a faint frown of disapproval.

"Well, I am," he said. For a moment, he thought about ignoring the massive elephant in the room, but cracked after a couple of seconds. "Sherlock, what –"

"I made you a cake."

The frank answer took John aback, and then it hit him. All this mess and effort, to make a cake for him. There was a little ember of warmth kindling just behind his ribcage, and a smile struggled to stretch across his face. Sherlock's eyes flicked back to him after the cake had turned completely white with a little pile of icing sugar in the middle.

John laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

Sherlock hoped that meant forgiveness, because he wasn't doing this again.

(The cake didn't taste too bad, actually, once they brushed off the excess icing sugar.)


End file.
